142 ]+ATTEE1t FOU A DISSEN'T'ING PREACHER, reject any thing in the course of our ministry, merely because they teach or practise it ; this would be highly irrational and im- proper. But when we find their matter of discourse, or their method of ministration hath been unblessed of God, or unsuc- cessful for the good of men, we have reason to see and enquire, whether there is not a snore proper way of preaching to attain the great ends of the ministry, even the glory of God, the ho- nour of Christ, and his gospel, with the conversion and salva- _ tion of poor sinful souls. This was the practice of the Son of God when he became a preacher among men, and let him be our pattern. If others therefore in the matter of their ministrations, in- sisting much on the moral law, have given too narrow explica- tions of it, and have not informed the people of the spiritual per- fection of it, let us preach it up in the perfect purity of its de- mands, and in the severity of its threatenings ; let us imitate our Lord Jesus Christ, and publish this holy law in its spirituality, and its terrors to awaken, convince and persuade men. If others have insisted most upon the ceremonies of worship, and established forms, and endeavoured to bind down the consciences of men to their inventions, or to the traditions of their fathers, which God never approved of, let us insist upon the commandof God alone, and upon those rites and forms of worship only which he bath instituted : ,If others have preached up the suffici- ciency of baptismal washing, instead of regeneration by the holy Spirit, and led their hearers to a false presumption, that they tire born of God, because they have been baptized, let us follow the doctrine of the blessed Jesus, who requires every man to be born again, to be born of the holy Spirit, as well as of water, and to be made a new creature in heart as well as in life, in order to enter into the kingdomof God. If we have found that others have been cold and indolent in their ministrations, and have been greatly defective in their zeal for God, if they have had too little concern for the souls of men, and too groat an in differency for the salvation of perishing sinners, let us double our zeal, let us be more earnest in labouring to save sinful crea- tures, and to bring saints nearer to God, and to build them up in faith and holiness. If we should have reason to fear the Spi- rit of God is much departed from others, let us cry with great earnestness, that the Spirit may never leave our assemblies, and abandon us to labour in vain without his influences. Let us long for the presence of that Spirit in our secret studies, as well as in our public ministrations of 'the gospel, which alone can make a Paul, or an Apollos, to plant and water with success. And this may be a way, not only to do more service to God, and do more good to the souls of men, but this may be means, in the providence of God, to secure us from the rage of men too.,
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